Pulimurugan is a 2016 Indian Malayalam-language action thriller film directed by Vysakh and produced by Tomichan Mulakuppadam through Mulakuppadam Films. The screenplay was written by Udayakrishna —half of the duo Udayakrishna and Sibi K. Thomas —in his first independent screenplay. The film stars Mohanlal in the titular role, along with a huge ensemble cast including Jagapati Babu, Kamalinee Mukherjee, Lal, Vinu Mohan, Kishore, Bala, Noby Marcose, Siddique, Suraj Venjaramoodu, Nandu, M. R. Gopakumar, Sudheer Karamana, Hareesh Peradi, Makarand Deshpande and Namitha. The film centers on Murugan, a skilled protector of Villagers of Puliyoor facing the threat of deadly tiger attacks. He meet Daddy Girija, an illegal drug dealer who take advantage of his innocence.
Principal photography commenced on 16 July 2015 in Hanoi, Vietnam, and was completed in early February 2016. The film score and soundtrack were composed by Gopi Sundar, while cinematography and editing was handled by Shaji Kumar and Johnkutty respectively. The film was released on 7 October 2016. Despite receiving mixed reviews from critics, the film was extremely successful at the box office. Pulimurugan became the first Malayalam film to earn ₹100 crore, setting several records at the box office and emerged as the highest grossing Malayalam film till date and held the record for seven years until it was surpassed by 2018. The 3D version of the film was released in April 2017, and that version released in theatres on July, 2017. The film has recorded theater footfalls of around 7.5 million during its run in Kerala alone. It remains as one of the highest-grossing Malayalam films of all time.
Two songs from the film"Kaadanayum Kaalchilambe" and "Maanathe Maarikurumbe" were selected among the 70 eligible songs contending for the Academy Award for Best Original Song nomination in the 90th Academy Awards. The film score was also selected among the 141 eligible scores contending for the Academy Award for Best Original Score nomination.
Plot Murugan lives in Puliyoor, a small forest village that is vulnerable to man-eating Royal Bengal Tigers and frequent human–wildlife conflicts. When he was young, Murugan's mother died after his brother Manikuttan was born. Soon after, his father was killed by a tiger; in vengeance, Murugan traps and kills the tiger with the help of his uncle Balaraman. Years later, Murugan is a truck driver, who lives with his wife Myna, and has a daughter, Chakki. He hunts and kills rogue tigers whenever they invade the village. Acknowledging his skills in hunting tigers, the villagers call him Pulimurugan (tiger Murugan). Murugan is grateful to the villagers who cared for him after his parents's deaths, and is obsessively protective of Manikuttan, who is about to finish his MBA graduation in Mangalore.
One day, Kadutha, the village chief, meets a hooded stranger who asks the whereabouts of Murugan for a hunting assignment. Murugan has been away from Puliyoor for days and many people have been killed by the tigers. According to Kadutha, Manikuttan's friends Benny and Shiva had arrived at Puliyoor, sent by Manikuttan to see Balaraman. Shiva's father Daddy Girija owned a pharmaceutical company which was developing a drug to treat cancer and they need ganja (cannabis) from the forest. When the medical research succeeds, Manikuttan will be offered a job in the company, so Balaraman helps them. They made a contract with Ramaiya, an illegal ganja dealer in the forest; on their return to the village they encounter a tiger but were saved by Murugan, who kills it.
Meanwhile, Manikuttan returned home after his final examinations. The forest officials have found the dead tiger's carcass at Thookupara; its killing is a violation of the Indian Wildlife Protection Act, a non-bailable offence. Forest ranger R. K. was assigned to investigate; R.K. has a four-year-old grudge against Murugan, when he had once tried to molest Myna, only to be threatened by Murugan. Taking advantage on the present scenario, R.K. prepared to file a self-witness F. I. R. against Murugan, who was forced to hide. Meanwhile, DSP Iyep Zachariah arrived at Puliyoor, apparently for Murugan. The ganja was loaded into Murugan's lorry for transporting to Mangalore.
Shiva and Benny hear that a confidant of Ramaiya was in police custody. Seeing a possibility of leaking the information, they are forced to transport it overnight. Shiva offered Murugan sanctuary in Kasaragod under Daddy's protection and deceived him that the police are in pursuit to arrest him for the tiger killing. A team led by Zachariya arrived at Murugan's home. Murugan with his family escaped to Mangalore in the transport and managed to escape the cops. He delivered the ganja and Manikuttan's job had been approved. Murugan impressed Daddy and earned his trust by helping in his business activities. Meanwhile, more people are killed by tigers at Puliyoor. In an encounter with Zachariya, Murugan learnt that Daddy was illegally producing hash oil and exporting it under cover of the pharmacy where Manikuttan was working.
Manikuttan co-operated with the cops to capture Daddy. Shiva caught Manikuttan extracting evidence of their activities and tortured him. Murugan rescued Manikuttan; in the ensuing fight, Shiva was accidentally killed by Murugan. The cops ambushed Daddy but he escaped. After narrating the events, the hooded stranger is revealed to be Daddy, who is seeking revenge for Shiva's death. Daddy assembles a group of assassins and ambushes Balaraman and Poongayi Sasi, where they take Balaraman and send Sasi back with severe injuries. Murugan returns home and learns about the events, where he heads to kill Daddy. A fight with the assassins ensues where Murugan kills them all, but gets attacked by Daddy. A fight ensues where Murugan saves Balaram from the tiger's den and defeats Daddy. Daddy gets killed and eaten by the tiger, when Murugan rescues Balaram and gets out of that den.
Cast
Production
Development A week after the release of Vysakh's directorial debut film Pokkiri Raja in 2010, its producer Tomichan Mulakuppadam talked with Vysakh for a future collaboration with Mohanlal in the lead role, who had already agreed to do a film with Vysakh before he debuted with Pokkiri Raja. The project was green-lit, but did not progress into a planning stage. Pokkiri Raja co-writer Udaykrishna was hired as a writer. Despite further discussions regarding the project, no progress occurred until 2014.
Pulimurugan was conceived by Udayakrishna, who developed the story idea from stories he heard during his childhood in eastern Ernakulam District. The stories presented the lives of people in Pooyamkutty, a small forest-area village where the villagers often had to fight with wild animals for living. At the time, Udayakrishna hinted about the character to Mohanlal, who showed interest. It is the first independent work by Udayakrishna after his split from the duo Udayakrishna and Siby K. Thomas.
The initial development of the project began in late December 2014, few days after the release of Vysakh's Cousins. Udayakrishna told Vysakh the plot about a jungle village which is frequently attacked by wild animals and a hunter who takes revenge on the animal. Vysakh decided it would be his next film. Together they developed the story; they were aware of the large funding required to realise the film. When they told the story to Mulakupadam, Vysakh asked him to wait a month. In meantime, Vysakh and Udayakrishna started researching for the film to get an understanding about the subject. A month later, they met Mulakuppadam, saying the film could not be started with a fixed budget, filming schedule or a release date, to which Mulakuppadam agreed. They next met Mohanlal, who already knew the plot idea from Udayakrishna. They told him the opening 15 minutes in much detail; he was impressed but was skeptical about the feasibility of it. Vysakh was also skeptical about shooting some of the sequences. Mohanlal was also asked to give no deadlines in terms of his dates, schedule or release; Mohanlal said he is ready to do it anytime they wanted.
To write a detailed screenplay, Vysakh and Udayakrishna stayed in a small house in Kerala for around three months. They travelled to get ideas about picturing the written scenes and prepared storyboards for the screenplay. They could not find any references for the man-animal fight scenes, so they consulted graphic experts to visualise the scenes. Mohanlal suggested engaging Thai fight-master Kecha, who is familiar with choreographing stunts with animals, to choreograph the film's stunts. Kecha asked for four years' time, which they could not afford, so they signed Peter Hein. Hein, who had not done man-animal fights before, took his preparation time for the film. The makers travelled to locations in South Africa and Vietnam to study tigers, their behaviour and how to tame them for filming. A one-week fight-training camp was conducted for Mohanlal in Vietnam, but the camp was dismissed after the first day after Hein was impressed with Mohanlal's action skills.
Casting In August 2015, Malayalam actress Anusree was offered the role of Myna. Due to a problem with a vein in her left shoulder she had to undergo a surgery which made her to opt out of the film. Later Bengali actress Kamalini Mukherjee replaced her as the female lead opposite Mohanlal in her first association with Mohanlal. Mukherjee had worked with Vysakh in a guest appearance in Cousins (2014). According to Mukherjee, her role is quite rustic and is not the type of role she has previously portrayed, and "the character has no urban nuances or traits". Lal officially confirmed his role in an interview in early September 2015, which he said he would play alongside Mohanlal. In the same month, Kishore revealed his role as a forest officer. Kishore, who was changing from negative to positive roles at the time, said he took the role because it was a Mohanlal film. Some pictures of South Indian actress Namitha taken in the filming location surfaced on the internet on 13 September, confirming her presence. She plays Julie, a girl from an affluent family.
Telugu actor Jagapati Babu reportedly joined the film on 14 September. In an interview the same month, Bala confirmed his involvement with the film. Bala was reported to have opted out from director Siva's Tamil film Vedalam (2015) in favour of a prominent role in Pulimurugan. Suraj Venjaramoodu confirmed his part the following month.
Vinu Mohan starred as Manikuttan, the younger brother of Murugan. The film shows a deep bond between the siblings. The presence of Makarand Deshpande was revealed when the official poster was released on 15 April 2016. Deshpande plays a wood smuggler; he described his role as a "quintessential bad guy who works for someone. I walk around in getups that can have a camouflage effect in the forest, so that I am not spotted easily." Murugan's childhood role was played by Master Ajas, who was selected after Vysakh saw his performance as a contestant in the Indian dance reality show D 4 Dance. Ajas was suggested to Vysakh by Nobi, who also plays a supporting role. Ajas made his acting debut in the film; before filming began he was given special training by the stunt team for fighting and running.
Anjali Aneesh plays Murugan's pregnant mother. Sudheer Karamana was signed for the role of a Muslim character named Kayikka, who appears in a single scene. Other supporting roles are played by Siddique, Nandu, Santhosh Keezhattoor, Sasi Kalinga, Sethulakshmi, Chali Pala, Hareesh Peradi, V. K. Baiju, Kannan Pattambi and Jaykrishnan.